


Garden

by Limanya



Category: Cytus (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, vaguely angstish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-05 02:56:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12785442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Limanya/pseuds/Limanya
Summary: The gods, too, know of death.They simply pretend not to.





	Garden

What is a human to a god?

There are some who believe mankind is nothing but a plaything to them. That the world is simply a large dollhouse, in which the gods control all that happens.  
Or perhaps the humans are a more modern, mechanical kind of toy, one which has at least some capability to move on its own - but ultimately relies on those above to do anything of meaning.

The gods, however, look down not as they would to a mere toy - besides, most consider themselves too old for that. If mankind was a plaything, that would imply the gods were neglectful.  
Surely, to live without responsibility would be a nice thing, but neither humans nor the gods above have found themselves capable to live in that manner.  
What a mortal is to a god is something of a companion, one who keeps a deity from getting lonely when the other gods aren't enough. A toy can certainly fulfill that role, but a toy cannot die.

Some more philosophical humans see the world as a dollhouse, or a toybox. The gods laugh at that chirping, coming from what they see as a birdcage.

Men serve gods by providing them something the gods see as entertainment, with some motivation mixed in. In return, the gods serve them by granting them life.  
Looking at it in that way makes the relation between mortal and immortal that much clearer. Even then, just as there are humans who deny the gods' existence, there are gods who deny this relation.  
Humans were modeled after gods: should they not be treated as their own? Yet as much as they believe in their own views, it cannot be denied that the border between heaven and earth is a difficult obstacle for gods and humans alike.

All that happens in the lower world stays there, and all that happens in the upper world remains above the clouds.

Meteor stared at the world.

There were the birds, trapped in their cage. Currently, he observed a little corner, where a few of them - he couldn't tell to what degree the gods had coaxed them - had gathered, and built a place to live. A cage within a cage, where the birds scraped up as much autonomy as they could and fiercely guarded it from something they could never hope to defeat, not in a thousand years, when the gods would still be waiting for any of them to put up a challenge while the mortals had all died.

Meteor recalled that town as being named Centriata, but he knew little else about it. All the humans, all the little specks were going about their day and when he looked closely, he saw that they looked little different from the gods. But he knew none of their names. Of course, if he was particularly interested in knowing, there were some deities who could very well satisfy the boy's curiosity. It wouldn't be fun for long, though - these were not his own words, but those he was warned with. Some of the humans down there had lived far longer than he, only a young god, had, but in another hundred years he could have memorized every single person who was there right now and not have found any of them.

It was mere curiosity with a hint of boredom that kept his gaze glued to the town. His domain was elsewhere, though nearly any god would have chosen to fixate on the lively town rather than the mostly empty skies, and he was one of them. And if the lower world, too, became too uninteresting for the young god, there were still other things he could - and should - do.

Now, it must be noted that, while many who observe such things and subsequently wish to describe the relation between god and man have a certain tendency to focus on the differences between the two, they also often fall victim to the human - and godly - flaw that is exaggeration. When differences are favored, the similarities, in turn, are ignored, reduced to nothing, seen as something nonexistent. This leads to a distorted view of the inhabitants of the upper world, one where the human traits, nonetheless borrowed from the gods themselves, are forcibly removed.

Such as mortality.

It is common knowledge that gods live forever; that is, provided they aren't killed before the end of forever. A god can, in fact, die, and although they are fond of viewing themselves as beings above strife, that is not entirely the case. Two deities are unlikely to harm each other, at least to a degree that could be considered dangerous, but that does not account for external forces.

Meteor stood up, blinking a few times to get his vision focused back on his surroundings, and at a slow pace made his way towards the gardens of the upper world.  
Of course, the gods don't just look after the humans' world, but after their own as well. Generally, these responsibilities are not something the children of the upper need to worry about, but there were a few reasons Meteor differed.

A rather simple explanation could be found in the fact that he enjoyed tending to the gardens. A more complicated, and significantly more important explanation would also be found in the fact that he enjoyed doing so, but for an exceedingly uncommon reason.

Said reason has been feared by the gods for many ages, even more, though very few have witnessed and even less have survived it. Its nature was a subject of debate among the god, though many suggested it was a manifestation of some eldritch force, or perhaps an ancient god of sorts. Most efforts to define it have led to wildly varying results, and as such, it is referred to with a name as one would address another god: Viz.

Viz behaved like a god. He, as he seemed to prefer being referred to as, was a being of immense power, but rarely made direct use of it. Rather, he relied on deceit and the innate flaws that gods, too, possessed. Moments of weakness he fed on, offering his own strength in return. As he found out, however, only very few knew how to handle him and his so-called gift, and his memory, though it spanned countless centuries, contained not one instance where his power had been lent to someone who hadn't then caused their own downfall.

Until now, at least.

Though Viz was strong, he had very little to compare his power to. On his own, he was nothing; he was a powerful being, yes, but his strength needed a vessel to be used, and Viz on his own was little more than a wisp. He preyed upon foolish gods from the inside, until nothing remained but he, the puppet master, the one who would then seize as much control as he could. But this was dependent on the extent to which he could overpower his host, and while his mental strength and resolve was close to matching his physical abilities, it also turned out that that was where other ageless beings shone as well.

Yet in the end, Viz had always come out victorious. That, however, took place on a smaller scale, and Viz did not know whether he would be capable of controlling someone well enough to survive an army. The gods wanted him dead, for as long as his existence had been common knowledge, and every new host was riskier than the last. And eventually, after a chase that even he could not predict the outcome of, he was trapped.

He'd been successful in finding a new host, of course. But not in much else.

Meteor woke up one day to a painfully oppressive feeling, coming from within his body, and the faint image of a young man standing by his bedside. Viz had been hoping to instill at least some fear in his poorly-chosen host, but the boy merely asked who he was and why he was here. And though he mostly kept to himself, Viz had quickly and correctly suspected that Meteor was far cleverer than he usually let on.

But what surprised Viz the most was the boy's immense willpower. In adult gods, it was easy to seperate the weakwilled from the trickier ones, but children were too unpredictable and generally had little need of his power. He'd taken a chance and lost severely, his soul now left powerlessly clinging to that of the young god, and could only wait and keep trying.

And he did. Every time Meteor seemed like he might be turning his back an inch too far, Viz struck, only to hit a complete and utter barrier that prevented him from actually doing anything. When Viz tried to assault him with words, it was Meteor who wielded his wit like a blade and never missed, when Viz tried to use brute force Meteor's willpower acted as a shield. The boy had no intent of relinquishing control over his body, and it was Viz who got to find that out.

When the gods around Meteor learned of his situation, they offered to help. But whenever they did, Meteor wondered whether accepting it and thus admitting he was too weak on his own would be a dangerous thing to do. Instead, he sought guidance: the elder gods could surely show the boy, who still had much to learn, how to handle the amplification of his own powers, and how to hone his mind further, so that Viz' influence was essentially nullified.

One goddess, a kind young woman with a tactical mind, had offered Meteor to go to the gardens, and spend his time there as he pleased. Sure enough, he greatly enjoyed it, and merely being in there, quietly tending to all the flowers, was enough to grant his mind the peace it needed. He enjoyed it as it was, but also recognized the second intention of subduing Viz: it had become his task, whether he wanted it or not.

Now, he did the same. The same he always did: mindlessly wandering around, ensuring the plants would grow well. He wasn't the only god who did this, of course, but he was by far the most dedicated, and Meteor could still vividly remember seeing the other, older gods' surprised faces when he walked in the first day. And it hadn't taken long for them to learn of Meteor's predicament, like all gods around the boy eventually did. That was fine, if it meant they knew to treat him like an equal. The last thing Meteor needed was - well, anything that could risk him losing to the force that always remained there, pounding loudly from within, trying to get free.

Today, the lilies were looking particularly beautiful. Meteor smiled when he saw them. He had a general love of plants and flowers, else he would not have accepted the goddess' offer, but it was lilies that he always had a soft spot for. Perhaps, once they were fully grown, he'd be allowed to take one or two home.

The lower world was, to some degree, modeled after the upper world, just as humans mirrored gods. Some more creative-minded gods, however, had occasionally decided to make their own additions to the flora and fauna of that world, so it happened often that a god would see something there they never had before. Meteor, too, often marveled at the newly invented plants and the unimaginable variety in animals. It was clear to see what those gods had been influenced by, but to make that finaly step and bring it into reality was something he never managed nor dared. Of course, the time of unlimited creation had long passed, and the gods were quite satisfied with the lower world as it was. But, perhaps, if he asked the right person...

Meteor laughed at his own thoughts. Even if he did have the chance to make something new, what would he use that opportunity for? It wasn't that he had no creative ability whatsoever, or anything of the like - rather, it was the opposite. But decisions were hard to make, satisfaction even harder to achieve. And regardless, he wasn't that type of deity. His mind was beginning to wander, but that was fine - as long as it remained somewhat content with the place it was in.

Viz was powerful, but his host severely limited his abilities. Meteor had noticed three things ever since he woke up on that day: his powers had been amplified, and what normally would have been a grain of sand was now equivalent to a small rock, so he refrained from using them too much. Furthermore, Viz was generally more of a quiet observer, despite his constant presence, and only made a few rare remarks every once in a while, the rest of his speaking time spent taunting Meteor. Lastly, Viz had many different tactics he used to ambush Meteor from the inside out, and not a single of them was successful or not immediately memorized and made predictable. Things were going well.

Things were going a little too well, in fact.

Because when Meteor stopped, after around four hours of sitting around and enjoying the warm sunshine or taking care of what had become his second home by now, and made his way back home to spend the rest of his day in a way he had yet to decide, it seemed as if time had suddenly frozen.

Somewhere along the way, a severe sense of fear struck him. For once, Viz wasn't responsible, and it wasn't an artificial fear either: it was the fear of what had happened to Viz' last host, and dreading what would happen to the next. Of course, he'd received praise from the other deities before, for his supposedly excellent performance in keeping Viz trapped. But even if it did work as a temporary solution - it was only temporary.

The warrior gods had already united and made plans to form a small army. They weren't counting on him to last long.

And he wanted to prove them wrong.

It certainly wasn't the first time he experienced these feelings. The looming threat was so close that there was no denying of it, or the terror that came along, but he'd accepted it. It made him stronger, to be able to push back as many times as he did, but -

_"Got a little too carried away there, didn't you?"_

That voice was decisive.

Meteor gasped for breath, but instead of air, it was an indescribable haze that filled his lungs and mind like a thick, painful smoke. He could hardly tell what was going on; in the span of a few seconds, most of his body felt numb, but the sensation retracted as quickly as it had spread in all but one place. And then, with invisible strings, intangible to all but him, tightly wrapping around his fingertips, his left arm slowly reached out, slowly, slower...

The last thing Meteor saw before losing consciousness was the sky falling apart.


End file.
